2011.02.24: February 24, 2011: The memory of a mentally disabled girl whom Annette Mandeville helped during her service in Jamaica stays with her
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2011.02.24: February 24, 2011: The memory of a mentally disabled girl whom Annette Mandeville helped during her service in Jamaica stays with her
The memory of a mentally disabled girl whom Annette Mandeville helped during her service in Jamaica stays with her
"Since Desiree would often take her clothes off and run away from the home, her grandmother's solution for protecting her was to bind her to a post in their shack almost all day long. She begged me to look for somewhere to take Desiree since she could not take care of her," Mandeville wrote. "I visited the only institution I could locate for cases like Desiree's, located in Kingston, and the conditions were truly appalling. I returned to Ms. Birdie and encouraged her to work with me to find a better solution for Desiree locally." Mandeville visited the family regularly, working with Desiree and her grandmother to increase Desiree's self-care skills. Other community members agreed to help the family, giving Ms. Birdie respite. "While the solution required a certain degree of ongoing hardship for Ms. Birdie, we agreed it was best for Desiree as she was truly loved by her family, even if they struggled to care for her," Mandeville wrote.
The memory of a mentally disabled girl whom Annette Mandeville helped during her service in Jamaica stays with her
Overseas volunteers tell Peace Corps stories
By TAMARA BROWNING
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Feb 24, 2011 @ 11:01 PM
Annette Mandeville and Valerie Njapa (sisters)
YEARS/PLACES OF SERVICE: Mandeville, 1989-91 in Jamaica; Njapa, September 1994-January 1998 in Cameroon in west Africa.
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Both Springfield
The memory of a mentally disabled girl whom Annette Mandeville helped during her service in Jamaica stays with her.
The girl's name was Desiree.
"She was 8 years old, mentally handicapped, and lived in a one-room shack with several others," Mandeville wrote.
After meeting Desiree's physically disabled grandmother, Ms. Birdie, at a local health clinic while conducting an early childhood development seminar, Mandeville was asked by the grandmother to visit her home to meet Desiree. The grandmother was Desiree's main caretaker.
"Since Desiree would often take her clothes off and run away from the home, her grandmother's solution for protecting her was to bind her to a post in their shack almost all day long. She begged me to look for somewhere to take Desiree since she could not take care of her," Mandeville wrote.
"I visited the only institution I could locate for cases like Desiree's, located in Kingston, and the conditions were truly appalling. I returned to Ms. Birdie and encouraged her to work with me to find a better solution for Desiree locally."
Mandeville visited the family regularly, working with Desiree and her grandmother to increase Desiree's self-care skills. Other community members agreed to help the family, giving Ms. Birdie respite.
"While the solution required a certain degree of ongoing hardship for Ms. Birdie, we agreed it was best for Desiree as she was truly loved by her family, even if they struggled to care for her," Mandeville wrote.
"In the Kingston institution, she would have been just one more rejected creature, kept more like an animal than a human being due to limited resources and the high staff/resident ratio. I don't know what happened to Desiree after I left, but I hope her family and community continued to care for her the best they could."
Mandeville's Peace Corps involvement influenced her sister, Valerie Njapa, to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. Njapa was an agroforestry volunteer in a village in a French-speaking province under the Cameroonian Ministry of Agriculture.
"When I finished high school, I went to visit my sister, who was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica," Njapa wrote. "The experiences I had on that trip would be the biggest influence on my decision to join Peace Corps just a few years later."
Njapa did her own convincing in Cameroon when she urged a farmer named Emmanuel to get medical help after he cut his foot with a machete while trying to chop a tree branch for firewood.
"A few weeks later, I saw Emmanuel on market day, and he thanked me and told me he was grateful for his life," Njapa wrote.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: February, 2011; Peace Corps Jamaica; Directory of Jamaica RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Jamaica RPCVs; Mental Health
When this story was posted in June 2011, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years As we move into the Peace Corps' second fifty years, what single improvement would most benefit the mission of the Peace Corps? Read our op-ed about the creation of a private charitable non-profit corporation, independent of the US government, whose focus would be to provide support and funding for third goal activities. Returned Volunteers need President Obama to support the enabling legislation, already written and vetted, to create the Peace Corps Foundation. RPCVs will do the rest. |
| How Volunteers Remember Sarge As the Peace Corps' Founding Director Sargent Shriver laid the foundations for the most lasting accomplishment of the Kennedy presidency. Shriver spoke to returned volunteers at the Peace Vigil at Lincoln Memorial in September, 2001 for the Peace Corps 40th. "The challenge I believe is simple - simple to express but difficult to fulfill. That challenge is expressed in these words: PCV's - stay as you are. Be servants of peace. Work at home as you have worked abroad. Humbly, persistently, intelligently. Weep with those who are sorrowful, Care for those who are sick. Serve your wives, serve your husbands, serve your families, serve your neighbors, serve your cities, serve the poor, join others who also serve," said Shriver. "Serve, Serve, Serve. That's the answer, that's the objective, that's the challenge." |
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Story Source: The State Journal Register
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Jamaica; Mental Health
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